Swoontini Interview: CLAIRE LEGRAND

Her name is maybe the best name ever. We are considering changing ours to Lo Lawonderful and Christina Lehotstuff in honor of Claire Legrand coming to visit Swoontini!** In addition to having an outstanding blog, being adorable on twitter, and becoming our new bestie, she also wrote a review for Kristin Cashore’s upcoming BITTERBLUE that managed to make me laugh for hours. I promise I will shut up about that review eventually but TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY, SO JUST GO READ IT ALREADY.

Claire is magnetic and insanely clever online.  The first time I visited her site, I was all, OMG CLAIRE IS MY PEOPLE (in that I want to know her, not that I am magnetic and clever), and from what I can tell, pretty much everyone feels the same way (which, yeah, this is a little awkward, but I think she’s mine now, you guys).  She is darling, and witty, and actually has her own unicorn (IKR??). Her MG book, THE CAVENDISH HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS is coming out in August from Simon & Schuster BFYR, and she’ll be back to celebrate the release with us, but for now, we just wanted to love on her a little bit. If you haven’t met Claire, you’re going to swoon hard for her, guys. She’s a keeper.

Lo & C: HELLO SUPERSTAR!
CL: HELLO CUPCAKES!

Lo says: Claire, this is how I knew we were Sisters-From-Another-Mister: on your site you say, “When presented with the choice to high five or not to high five, [Claire] will always choose TO HIGH FIVE.” ME TOO! Let us BAD DANCE together while we high five!

CL: LOLO. HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE TO BAD DANCE (that it is, in fact, the only way I know how to dance)??

Christina says: I fell in love with you from: DVD commentary tracks (I LOVE THESE), speaking in a British accent (my kid thinks mastering this ensures her place at Hogwarts), film scores (*soulmates* pretty much the only music I can write to), the fact that you put ninja & librarian in the same sentence, THE LAST UNICORN OMG *gets down on one knee, proposes*
CL: Christina, you are most def making me swoon. Let’s cause a big hullabaloo and run away together—WHILE SPEAKING LIKE BRITISH PEOPLE.
Christina: DONE

Lo says: Wait! Before you run off into the sunset! It’s Valentine’s day!! *covers you in glittery unicorn stickers* What are your favorite swoony books?
CL: MWAH. Happy Valentine’s Day! Despite the fact that this is totally a holiday manufactured by the greeting card companies, I have to endorse any holiday that gives me an excuse to eat chocolate.

Also, you know what? I am a really hard person to make swoon, I must say. Like, I have some seriously high standards; I am more likely to roll my eyes at something rather than swoon. And so you know when I swoon, it MEANS something. I am, yes, a sucker for Jane Austen novels (most especially Emma and Persuasion because Mr. Knightley and Captain Wentworth are just to die for), and also for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (Mr. Rochester OH BE STILL MY HEART). Other swoony books: Kristin Cashore’s Fire {C: omg i’m reading t his now!}, because of Brigan (*fans self*), The Amber Spyglass because of Lyra and Will and THAT BENCH, and Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown (oh, TOR <3 and no, not you other fellow, no). You know who is also swoony? Calvin O’Keefe from A Wrinkle In Time, even now, like 15 years after I first read that book. Homeboy was my first literary swoon, I think. Books I swoon over for the writing alone: anything Laini Taylor, Erin Bow’s Plain Kate, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (the romance between Althea and Lir is nice in that, as well). OH, and the first part of Atonement by Ian McEwan, which I could read over and over again for that simmering, summery sexual tension. Leigh Bardugo’s upcoming debut Shadow & Bone is also quite scrumptiously swoony. Oh, and Franny Billinglsey’s Chime; I love the relationship between Briony and Eldric. You MUST read that one, if you have not already.

Lo says: Oh yes. Fire + Brigan = ::vowel sounds:: That may require another read very soon. And I’ve read some but not all of these – I LOVE RECS!

C says: Do you have any awesomely horrible Valentine’s Day stories to share?
CL: You know, I really do not. But I am actually celebrating Valentine’s Day this year, and that is awesomely AWESOME. Does that count? 😉

Lo says: I must admit, I have not yet seen Black Swan. My excuse is the Small People in my house and how they’re all “LET’S WATCH PHINEAS AND FERB, MOM” and “CAN U FEED ME NOW, MOM.”  But truly, can we still be friends?
CL: LOLO. LOLO YOU MUST watch IT. Perhaps some night after the Small People have finished Phineas and Ferb and awayed themselves to bed? It is not swoony, though; it is mostly just disturbing. Maybe you should follow it up with more Phineas and Ferb, to cleanse your brain before sleepytimes.

Lo & C: Tell us about teenage Claire. What recent books would she have devoured? Who would be her favorite badass chick and who would make her swoon?
CL: Teenage Claire was an odd little bird. She was not very concerned with boys and swooning, and much more concerned with doing EVERYTHING and getting ALL THE A’S and being a kickass musician. When she DID think about boys and swoony things, she certainly didn’t think about boys her own age in a swoony capacity, because they were so spindly and silly, and did not understand the importance of getting ALL THE A’S. She found Mr. Darcy, or Captain Picard, or Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park, infinitely more fascinating. But mostly she just worked her butt off. Teenage Claire would have absolutely devoured the aforementioned Shadow & Bone, Kristin Cashore’s upcoming Bitterblue, and basically everything else that now-Claire devours, because our tastes have not changed. Her favorite badass chick—oh, she had so many! She loved (as do we all, am I right?) Hermione from Harry Potter. She also loved Meg Murry from A Wrinkle In Time, Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager, and Jo March from Little Women. She did not understand why Jo chose Professor Bhaer over Laurie—but now she understands, and approves.

Lo says: We are nodding frantically with all of those things – can you see us? Also, we are silly excited for THE CAVENDISH HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (coming August 28, 2012). I think it will scare me and I think I will make my husband check the closets and under the bed and he will love mocking me for it. Tell us about The Day You Got The Call From Diana (Fox, Claire’s superstar agent) with the news. Was there dancing? Chocolate? Cheese? YouTube?
CL: Aw, yay! I’m so glad you’re excited about CAVENDISH. I’m excited, too. And . . . I just got my ARCs, actually! Hopefully soon I will have A BIG OL’ REVEAL EXTRAVAGANZA to celebrate, and there will be prizes, and merriment, and much bad dancing.

The Day I Got The Call was so surreal. This was actually not the first project I queried Diana with; there was another one, and we had spoken about it at length at a writers’ conference almost an entire year before. We got along superbly, but it just was not the right time, nor the right project. But when I sent CAVENDISH to her, she contacted me almost immediately and offered representation. (See, now, this is why it is okay to put a project in the drawer, even if only temporarily, and then move on, because sometimes glorious thingscan happen.) There was much dancing and cheese, yes, how did you know?? And also YouTube. Specifically:

I felt like it couldn’t possibly be happening, but I also wasn’t too surprised, because I just felt like Diana and I were meant for each other, much in the same way that I am made for Swoontini. It was COSMIC. FATED. GLITTERY.

YES! Swoontini & Claire is an awesome similar to peanut butter and chocolate (unless you are allergic to peanuts in which case: rewind & ignore). Totally unrelated but just as awesome: Joanna Volpe gave your book five stars on Goodreads. JUST SAYIN.
CL: Omg I love Joanna. Not only does she rep fabulous authors (Kody Keplinger (Shut Out, The Duff), Veronica Roth (Divergent), Leigh Bardugo (the afore-aforementioned Shadow & Bone [which EVERYONE SHOULD READ, in case you hadn’t figured that out]), but she is also just awesome. Her good opinion means so much to me. Also, she at one point in time referred to me as “CAVENDISH Unicorn Girl,” so we know she’s good people.
[Lo inserts: She also reps T. Michael Martin who is a total sweetheart, has awesome-sounding books coming up, and who will be here for an interview later this spring!].

Lo says: Your post “It’s okay to blog yourself” was totally adorable (per usual), and I can definitely relate to that feeling. Why do you think it’s so hard for us to talk about ourselves? I always feel like I have to preface it with an apology EVEN THOUGH PEOPLE ARE VISITING OUR SITE.  Srs question time: why are we all so weird?
CL: I think there are lots of factors that can contribute to this.

1) We want to be liked. Plain and simple. If you’re putting your thoughts and feelings out into the world, you fear rejection and yearn for recognition, for connections, for approval. Even people who don’t think that they yearn for that love it when they get good hits or comments on a blog post, for example. Nobody wants to be ignored, disliked, or made of. And it can be scary to risk that.

2) I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to talk about myself and what I TRULY think and feel (and not just what I think others think I OUGHT to think and feel) because I second-guess and overanalyze EVERYTHING. I find myself having one opinion and then argue myself out of it and then I don’t know where I stand, exactly, and then I just feel silly and wishy-washy because I can see both sides of things, see? And no one wants to hear from a person who can’t make up her mind. And if I can’t make up my mind, then that must mean that I’m unworthy of being heard, that I’m unintelligent, right? (No.) OH THE CRAZY BRAIN SPIRALS.

3) As writers and bloggers especially, but really as anyone who wants to be taken seriously online, we want to maintain a certain professionalism, so obviously we have to be careful about saying certain things or acting in certain ways. We have to always be on our guard: Could someone take this the wrong way? Am I being insensitive? Am I speaking too rashly in the heat of the moment? Am I keeping my content appropriate for my audience? This leads into more overanalyzing, and more second-guessing, and more deleting of blog posts that we slaved over but aren’t sure we should post anymore, and that leads us back to #2.

Being weird is good, Lolo & Cee. If we weren’t weird, what would we talk about? More importantly, what would we WRITE about?

Lo & C say: This is so true, and we assure you that C and I embrace the weird on the DAILY. Sometimes we come across a blog post that settles the writer beast inside. Your post on drafting was recently one of those for us. What are some of your go-to websites for perspective, giggles, and encouragement?
CL: Oh, that crazy writer beast. I know it well.

For perspective: I get off the frickin’ Internet. Staying online so much for work and writing makes me crazy sometimes, and nothing gets me out of my head and back into the real world more than just that—getting back out into the real world, spending time with friends and family, and turning my energies outward instead of inward.

For giggles: Good Show Sir is a site highlighting the most awful science fiction and fantasy covers. Ohhh, the lols. Hyperbole and a Half. DUH this website is amazing, and I wish I knew Allie Brosh in person. I feel certain, L&C, that she would be our BFF and bad dance with us and give us many a high five.  This hilarious site archives parody scripts of movies. Some of the movies parodied are actually good; some are awful; but all the parody scripts are amazing.

For encouragement: One of my favorite writer blogs is Veronica Roth’s blog. She just seems to have all her stuff together, you know? And she always speaks with reason, passion (a hard balance to achieve!), and an at times startling level of insightfulness. Veronica’s blog calms my crazy writer beast and motivates me to become a better writer.

Lo & C: Thank you so much for agreeing to put up with our crazy be interviewed here at Swoontini. We are totally smitten with you and can’t wait to have you back in August to celebrate the release of THE CAVENDISH HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS!!
CL: This was so much fun, ladies! Thank you for having me here at your fantastic blog! 😀

We love you, Swoonies! Next week: MYRA MCENTIRE! (I KNOW I KNOW OMG!)

xoxo, Lo & C

**(And yes, we know the actual translation, settle down you adorable Pointdexters).